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The TARP funds issue is not about news. It’s about science. The scientific method requires a hypothesis. Our hypothesis is: Create a massive government “safety net” and you will experience billions of dollars of waste and fraud. There are the annual oversight reports of fraud in welfare (now TANF), Social Security, Medicare, Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps (now electronic benefits transfer that was intended to cure the fraud), etc. Then there are the examples of fraud for ad hoc situations such as relief from Hurricane Katrina. It becomes difficult to feign outrage when the hypothesis is reinforced time and time again. Gravity is a source of constant frustration. But it is what it is.

As for Mr. Madoff, his investors were led to believe that by placing their trust in him they would escape the natural fluctuations of the market. It was as if he could make something from nothing. Madoff’s clients learned, however, that by putting their faith in a financial alchemist, he taught them a lesson in something older than the scientific method – human nature.

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